Agent to the Rescue (Special Agents At The Alter Book 3) by LISA CHILDS Page A

asked. Her skin had grown pale again, making her red hair look even brighter and more vibrant. She had exchanged her hospital gown for clothes that Dalton had bought and sneaked into her room. She wore tan pants and a pale yellow blouse. There were other clothes in a small bag in the backseat, too. It had bothered her that she hadn’t been able to buy them herself. But along with her identity, her money and credit cards had been lost, too.
    With obvious reluctance, she admitted, “My head is starting to hurt again.”
    “Should I take you to a hospital?” he asked with alarm, even as he mentally clocked the distance to the closest one.
    “No, the headache is my fault,” she said. “I think I’m trying too hard to remember—to find something familiar.”
    His tension eased somewhat. Maybe she wasn’t medically in danger. But how about emotionally?
    “Have you found anything familiar?” he asked.
    “It’s
Chicago
,” she said. “Doesn’t everyone know what Chicago looks like—just like they know what New York looks like? It doesn’t necessarily mean that they’ve ever lived there or even been there. Maybe they just saw it on TV so many times or in movies or described in books that it feels familiar.”
    “So it does feel familiar to you,” he deduced.
    She uttered a small groan of frustration. “I just don’t know...”
    “Close your eyes for a few minutes,” he suggested. “Relax.” He didn’t want her hurting herself.
    She must have been exhausted, because she took his advice, but her rest didn’t last long. When he pulled into the downtown parking garage, she opened her eyes. “We’re here?”
    “This is the apartment building where the owner of the Mercedes lives,” he said.
    “Do you think he could have been the one—” her throat moved as she swallowed convulsively, probably choking on nerves or fear “—that put me in the trunk?”
    Dalton reached for her, sliding his arm around her shoulders to offer her comfort. She trembled against him and he tightened his embrace. “Of course not,” he said. “I wouldn’t have brought you along if I thought he could be the one who had hurt you.”
    She had thought that all this time and had been willing to confront her attacker? He’d known she was strong, but her fearlessness overwhelmed him.
    “Then why did you bring me along?” she asked, peering up at him in the dim light of the parking garage. He’d already turned off the SUV.
    “Maybe he will recognize you,” he said. “Someone stole his car to abduct you. It could have been a theft of convenience—like his car and you were in the same vicinity.”
    She looked beyond him to peer around the parking garage. “You think I could have been grabbed here?”
    Instead of cowering, she opened the passenger’s door and stepped out to confront her fear or her elusive memories. Dalton jumped out the driver’s door and hurried around to her side of the car. They hadn’t been followed. But if the killer had figured out that they might come back here...
    He didn’t want her far from his side in the dimly lit parking garage. He didn’t want to lose her.
    * * *
    C HILLED FROM THE DAMPNESS of the parking garage, she shivered. But maybe it wasn’t just the dampness that had chilled her blood.
    Maybe there were memories there—in the shadows of the steel-and-concrete structure. And maybe she had buried those memories so deeply that she couldn’t access them anymore. They were just out of her reach...like Agent Reyes.
    He had put his arm around her earlier for comfort and support. But now he stood on the other side of the elevator. Maybe he was frustrated that she couldn’t remember—that she couldn’t help him solve her case. Before they had stepped onto the elevator, he had called someone—maybe an FBI crime scene tech. He had asked them to come and inspect the garage for blood.
    Her blood...
    “You have my DNA,” she realized. From the trunk of that stolen car. “Can’t you find